5 captains who lost their job because of an Ashes failure
The Ashes is the most important Test series for English and Australian cricketers and careers are often made or broken on the basis of performances against the old enemies. Success in the Ashes can be career-defining, while failures can often lead to stunted cricket careers and the same holds true for captains who are in charge of teams which fare badly in this historic series.
Captaincy in a series of such magnitude is often a thankless job and poor performances on a personal level coupled with poor results for the team has often led to captains losing their jobs for either side. Here is a look at 5 such captains who lost the top job for failing in the Ashes.
5 Ricky Ponting
Former Australian great Ricky Ponting might be one of the nation's great captains but as far as Ashes series are concerned he has not had a great time. Out of the 4 Ashes series in which he captained, he lost in three of them but it was the third one that eventually led to his ouster as the Test match captain for Australia.
In the 2010 -11 Ashes in Australia, the hosts crashed to a 3-1 defeat to lose the first series at home to England since 1986-87 and Ponting's form with the bat left a lot to be desired.
Former players, among them Steve Waugh, opined that Ponting should bat lower down the order and writing seemed to be on the wall for one of world cricket's greatest batsmen. He retained the captaincy for the 2011 World Cup but he never captained Australia in Test cricket again.